Slashdot Mirror

We've talked about this before [slashdot.org]. You can stop now. Thanks.

and refers to a silly post that misrepresents what I said, adds nothing substantial and totally misses the point. You can't say Philadelphia and Los Angeles were not sued by the BSA, that such despicable practices are not part of non free software in general or that public school system don't live under the same licensing cloud everyone else using non free software is under. The raft of arrogant demands non free software companies make is infamous and expensive. Not only do users of the worst kind of that software have to keep track of all the stuff they actually buy, they have no way of keeping their users from installing software behind their back. The BSA then goes the extra mile with anonymous phone lines, where disgruntled employees can call and fink on their former employers for the software they installed themselves! This triggers expensive, court ordered audits. Public schools are targets of the same tactics, as a quick Google search shows. My favorite is this one.

That kind of anti-social behavior is what the non free software model leads to. If they don't "protect" their precious binaries there, what becomes of them? Companies like Microsoft have spent millions of dollars trying to convince people that the world should be that way, but it has not worked. People are repulsed by it.

There has been quite a bit of headscratching about this, and there seem to be several factors involved:

Don't forget that bizarre turn-on -- dry sex. Painful for women, but apparently strangely enjoyable for men, it also significantly increases the chance of infection for both. I'm not talking about women who have sex when they aren't in the mood. It is a lot more extreme then that -- some women use chemicals like bleach to remove natural lubricants and irritate the tissue to make it swell up, others actually insert little bags of vaginal potpourri to absorb the fluids and dry themselves out - I bet Martha Stewart is already making plans to break into that market.

Anyone who thinks I'm kidding, here are 3 articles, out of thousands, on the practice

Salon 1999
Time 2001
The Lancet 1998

They could use a marketing campaign over there - "Lube - it does a body good!"

First: Yes, Slate was launched in 1996 and intended to compete with Salon which was launched in 1995. The article from 1997 seems to have struck a nerve both then and now.

Second: I did not write that Gates is footing the bill for the whole thing. His program is only providing seed money to get regional governments to supplement with a ratio of matching funding. Money put into the system by the governments increases revenue, which drives stock prices. The choice of corrective treatment, rather than proactive, means that there will be an ongoing demand for the pills, which will then be bought from the same pharma.

So if a small investment of a few million (or billion) causes one's stock holdings to jump by more than that, whether in the short term or the long term then it's a net gain.

Or maybe we shoulda worked harder on tele-transporting.

Tele-transporting may be a stretch, but helicopters could've been practical by now, had the federal government not invested the taxpayers' monies so heavily into highways, while charging their users very little.

The system's military purpose was, probably, sensible, but the infamous Alaskan bridge to nowhere is only the most recent "poster child" of how all government projects get out of hand, and why we should be highly sceptical of the new ones, and attach automatic expiration dates to all of them.

1997 was one of the last years printed and other media were allowed to criticize Gates or his movement. That particular article was probably what cause him to gun for Salon by means of Slate. (see your standard Elves/Orcs analogy or similar from other geek literature)

Has he done wrong in the past? Yes. Does that mean he is incapable of doing right in the future? No.

So what?
Does that mean he was incapable of doing right in the past? No, but he didn't.

It's more like this:
Did he do wrong in the past? Yes.
Does he do wrong in the present? Yes.
Will he do wrong in the future? Yes, based on what we have observed to date.

First off it's not real charity.
Much of it is simply targeted to block F/OSS. Even the actual charity parts deal with dumping millions on ineffective, corrective treatments involving expensive medications and getting some level of matching funding from the local governments. And those expensive medications come from big pharmas which, surprise, Gates is heavily invested in.

There is also a strong element of PR in the Foundation: since 1995 MS has had various plans on how to direct corporate giving in ways that guarantee the greatest returns to the company. We've also been seeing loads and loads of vanity puff-pieces appearing across a wide variety of news publications. The NYT even publishes ones written by (or ghost written for) Chairman Gates himself.

The point here is that in this case it appears that charity is simply being used as tool to affect the market in ways that lobbying and plain old sales can't. It allows individual institutions or regions to be targeted quickly with a level of speed that defending governments and businesses have trouble reacting to.

It's seems that with this infusion of funding from Buffet, MS, through the Gates Foundation, crosses the line from being a lobbying entity to being fully a political/ideological movement.

Welcome to the next level.

your kid's school (BSA) Please provide proof of this. Thanks.

That's funny because I love to point out how the non free software way is anti-social by pointing to just that. Yes, the BSA has sued public schools for copying text editors. The dumb ass administration handed worker bees M$ Word Docs without purchasing Word for them. The BSA set up exam time ambushes, which cost everyone tons of money and heartache. The same threat is still held over every public school, just like any other place people use non free software. The suits are public record and articles like this one are easy to find.

Your Welcome

Here's a link to a good illustration of the problem with the MacBook Pro: http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2006/05/15/macbo ok/story.jpg

OK, so you have to watch a brief advert. Just do it and read the article. It's worth your time.

The article starts with: "In a pivotal network operations center in metropolitan St. Louis, AT&T has maintained a secret, highly secured room since 2002 where government work is being conducted, according to two former AT&T workers once employed at the center."

and it gets more gruesome from there.

Those who are willing to sacrifice liberty for security, deserve neither.

RS

Day Pass Cookie:
http://www.salon.com/news/cookie756.html

I was going to submit the following Salon article to the front page, but this will have to do

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/06/21/att_n sa/index_np.html

You have to wonder if the two stories are related.

Don't tell the President. Or Rove, for that matter.

Farm subsidies are possibly the greatest barrier to third world agricultural development there is (that's as true for EU subsidies as anyone else's), but talk about a way to make things worse. So, no, you shouldn't be paying farmers to farm, then buying their excess food to send it, using your vessels, to the third world. You should be paying farmers to manage the countryside, and buying food aid as close to famine areas as possible. By all means use it US food to feed the hungry in the US, but please, for the sake of the famine-stricken, keep American food out of African mouths.

Early Signs: Reports From a Warming Planet is a joint project of the U.C. Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, Salon and NPR's "Living on Earth." The series runs Fridays through May 5 in Salon, and you can find radio versions of each story on "Living on Earth's" Web site. Read about how the series came into being here.

Just because the movie happens to sponsor the day pass at Salon - well, whatever.

And some more:
In recent years, evidence has been emerging from various parts of the globe that climate change is not only real, it is beginning to have significant political, economic and human impact. Much of the reporting on the subject in the U.S. has focused on the "debate" over whether warming is occurring, and if so, whether humans are partly the cause. Scientists, however, have already answered these questions -- resoundingly in the affirmative -- as represented by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which comprises more than 2,000 scientists representing over 100 nations.

Early Signs: Reports From a Warming Planet is a joint project of the U.C. Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, Salon and NPR's "Living on Earth." The series runs Fridays through May 5 in Salon, and you can find radio versions of each story on "Living on Earth's" Web site. Read about how the series came into being here.

Just because the movie happens to sponsor the day pass at Salon - well, whatever.

And some more:
In recent years, evidence has been emerging from various parts of the globe that climate change is not only real, it is beginning to have significant political, economic and human impact. Much of the reporting on the subject in the U.S. has focused on the "debate" over whether warming is occurring, and if so, whether humans are partly the cause. Scientists, however, have already answered these questions -- resoundingly in the affirmative -- as represented by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which comprises more than 2,000 scientists representing over 100 nations.

I'm sure I'll hear that the plural of anecdote is not data, that it is too expensive to fix, that we should throw up our hands and accept things. Global warming is not happening; and even if it is, we didn't do it; and so what if we did, so what - we should write off Bangladesh, forget the polar bears, and be happy to grow wheat in Canada instead. Sure. But please, read some of these stories.

I'm sure I'll hear that the plural of anecdote is not data, that it is too expensive to fix, that we should throw up our hands and accept things. Global warming is not happening; and even if it is, we didn't do it; and so what if we did, so what - we should write off Bangladesh, forget the polar bears, and be happy to grow wheat in Canada instead. Sure. But please, read some of these stories.

In fact one of the very first things Bush did when he entered the White House was remove all of the DOJ lawyers on the Microsoft monopoly case who had any legal experience with monopolies.

Could you please provide a link to this information? I was unable to find any.

Google is your friend.

Especially this article from the first page of results: Slap on the wrist? (Salon.com)

Apple has never been a huge H1-B backer, but Bill Gates is MR. H1-B. He's now lobbying Congress to allow in almost unlimited numbers of foreign programmers - anyone with an American Masters degree, e.g. How they will flock! What Bill wants, Congress rushes to do, and Bill has always loved flocking American programmers!

Doc

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/05/26/visas / (may require your sitting through a sponsor's animated ad)

What's good for Bill Gates...

The Microsoft mogul says America needs more foreign engineers and programmers to compete. Critics say it's all about cheap labor.

By Rebecca Clarren
Salon Magazine ...

Generally, industry lobbyists are quick with statistics and reports, but in this case it appears they weren't needed. Neither Microsoft nor Intel would reveal how many Ph.D.s or master's students they hired last year, and how many they need for next year. When the companies and their lobbyists were asked what data and reports they showed Congress to convince them of the need for these new visas, they reported that they don't have any reports and statistics. Marcus Courtney, president of WashTech/CWA, a tech workers union, says as long as they have Bill Gates on their side, "they don't need to use anything to substantiate their arguments."

"William Gates was in Washington, lobbying -- a pretty high-priced lobbyist -- to come talk about the needs of Microsoft, a marvelous company, high-tech, enormous advances for America -- he wants more people with Ph.D.s and wants a larger quota of visas for those people to come in," Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., the bill's author, told Salon when asked what data the industry had shown him. "We have accommodated that. And we have created more opportunities for people to come in who are students."

Such ardor for Gates flows from both sides of the aisle. When asked about reports and data presented to convince Democrats on the Judiciary Committee that the U.S. didn't have the workforce it needed to fill these jobs, Tracy Schmaler, spokesperson for the Democrats on the Judiciary Committee, responded: "Did you know Bill Gates has been pretty high-profile on this?"

Critics of the bill, mainly academics and those who represent American tech workers, say they have no voice on this issue; that Congress has been blinded by campaign contributions of big companies. In 2004, Microsoft alone spent $9.46 million on lobbying and hired 16 different firms; it listed immigration as one of its top issues on lobbying disclosure forms, according to data from the nonprofit Center for Responsive Politics. That same year, computer and Internet industries spent $70.5 million on lobbying.

"There is no greater case study to understand corporate power in politics," says Courtney of the tech workers union. "I could give you 75 reports that prove that H-1B is a horribly flawed program that hurts American workers, but it doesn't matter. As long as Bill Gates says there's a shortage, and that's it, thanks for playing, game over, try again next session."

Rather OT, but I'm unable to submit stories [from Win XP], hope someone will find this worth submitting. How 'the system' works to help Bill produce huge systems without running out of money - cheap labor.

Doc

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/05/26/visas / (may require your sitting through a sponsor's animated ad)

What's good for Bill Gates...

The Microsoft mogul says America needs more foreign engineers and programmers to compete. Critics say it's all about cheap labor.

By Rebecca Clarren
Salon Magazine ...

Generally, industry lobbyists are quick with statistics and reports, but in this case it appears they weren't needed. Neither Microsoft nor Intel would reveal how many Ph.D.s or master's students they hired last year, and how many they need for next year. When the companies and their lobbyists were asked what data and reports they showed Congress to convince them of the need for these new visas, they reported that they don't have any reports and statistics. Marcus Courtney, president of WashTech/CWA, a tech workers union, says as long as they have Bill Gates on their side, "they don't need to use anything to substantiate their arguments."

"William Gates was in Washington, lobbying -- a pretty high-priced lobbyist -- to come talk about the needs of Microsoft, a marvelous company, high-tech, enormous advances for America -- he wants more people with Ph.D.s and wants a larger quota of visas for those people to come in," Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., the bill's author, told Salon when asked what data the industry had shown him. "We have accommodated that. And we have created more opportunities for people to come in who are students."

Such ardor for Gates flows from both sides of the aisle. When asked about reports and data presented to convince Democrats on the Judiciary Committee that the U.S. didn't have the workforce it needed to fill these jobs, Tracy Schmaler, spokesperson for the Democrats on the Judiciary Committee, responded: "Did you know Bill Gates has been pretty high-profile on this?"

Critics of the bill, mainly academics and those who represent American tech workers, say they have no voice on this issue; that Congress has been blinded by campaign contributions of big companies. In 2004, Microsoft alone spent $9.46 million on lobbying and hired 16 different firms; it listed immigration as one of its top issues on lobbying disclosure forms, according to data from the nonprofit Center for Responsive Politics. That same year, computer and Internet industries spent $70.5 million on lobbying.

"There is no greater case study to understand corporate power in politics," says Courtney of the tech workers union. "I could give you 75 reports that prove that H-1B is a horribly flawed program that hurts American workers, but it doesn't matter. As long as Bill Gates says there's a shortage, and that's it, thanks for playing, game over, try again next session."

But stripping a guy down in front of a woman trumps that in your book.

Please. At least a dozen people were KILLED as a result of torture in Abu Ghraib. The pictures of our soldiers posing with the bodies were all over the internet. Do you really mean to tell me you didn't notice that?

You still stated that we are currently living in the darkest days since Jim Crow laws. I'm just playing devil's advocate. Clinton intentionally turned his back on China's human rights violations, which include ACTUAL torture and transmigration (killing off the male population, colonizing and breeding a people out of existence).

You have got to be fucking kidding me. The Chinese crimes were committed by... wait for it... that's right, CHINA. A country we have very little ability to influence. No matter how you twist it, Clinton is not to blame for what the Chinese government did. On the other hand, the crimes in Abu Ghraib were committed by, yes, that's right, agents of the US GOVERNMENT, who were acting on legal advice provided by the Secretary of Defense.

So please spare me the argument that Clinton's trade liberalization with China is somehow morally equivalent to US Government-conducted torture of prisoners.

Sean

I've got to say, I have trouble with charging content providers even once, so I completely agree with this criticism of the proposed "revenue enhancing" technologys for the megacorps.

I used to post commentary to Salon's TableTalk until they changed their revenue policy to charge people who posted stuff for the right to post. People who posted stuff? They're a magazine. It seems absurd to charge writers but not subscribers. So I left. Obviously it didn't bring the empire down, but my point was to say "look, I'm not going to pay two ways: one by providing content and another by providing money to have that content delivered". People come to the site to read posts, and they charge advertisers for that. Getting readers is enough payment for me.

Similarly here, I think it's amazing that if you have a web site that is full of content, the internet has no mechanism to make sure you are economically rewarded. The promise of micropayments for having put up very elaborate sites full of information was never carried through because the big portal sites realized they could just take all that money for themselves--why pass it through? No one cares that it's my or your commentary that people are getting out of their browser. They just thank AOL or MSN or Google for finding it for them. And we who provide the myriad little details, blogs, maps, lists, and other things that make up the real fabric of the internet are not only not rewarded but are charged.

So when you talk about double-charging for that privilege, not single-charging, at some point I have to say everyone should go read Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged , in which something very similar occurs, and what amount to "content providers" eventually say "enough is enough". Ayn Rand is controversial for her overall broad philosophy of Objectivism, which lots of people don't buy into wholesale. But I'm not advancing Objectivism here. I'm just saying the basic premise of the book, that sometimes enough is enough, is worth considering. The book is an interesting read regardless of your position on her larger scale philosophies.

And I'm all for creating reasonable fees on the Internet. I just don't think authors and other content providers should be charged for doing so. That's the very definition of not reasonable. Sort of like having kids charge their parents for raising them. Or charging teachers for the privilege of teaching. If no one reads the content someone provides, the cost of that content approaches zero since it's just a few bytes on an unused disk. If lots of people read them, then by definition the content contributes a lot to the world, and the world should contribute by each consumer chipping in, not by each consumer contributing to the content provider's eventual bankruptcy (or in less severe cases just negatively contributing to their financial success).

Also, I like Jesse Ventura's "government should do for people what they cannot do for themselves". The big portal companies are already capable of a great many sins; the mere presence of money enables that. What the law needs to protect are the individual content providers, who are not capable of protecting themselves because often they are denied (or made to work unreasonably hard for) any revenue stream from their efforts. If there's a need for a law, it's to protect the little guy, not to enable the big one.

Caroline Benner is a fellow at the University of Washingtons Institute for International Policy. From 2001 to 2003, Ms. Benner was a consultant with the geopolitical policy and strategy group at Microsoft.

Just what does a software company need a Geopolitical Policy and Strategy Group for anyway? Gobal FUD? Creepy, and she's got a long history of M$ apologies and FUD to her name. Let's review,

• Not embarrassed by M$ virus penetration of Pentagon systems or disruption of NASA communications endagering the Space Shuttle and five months before the 9/11 attacks she tells us not to worry about cyber terrorists because the mighty M$ can deal with such unskilled attackers through patches., " time and access one needs to create a devastating attack, like crashing an airplane. In "Six Nightmares," Lake doesn't consider the checks that protect infrastructure from such threats. He also fails to ask an obvious question: If there are so many malicious hackers at work (19 million, by Lake's count), why have their attacks been, by and large, fairly innocuous?" M$ forsight. Let's review what happened next:
  • 9/11 demonstrated to the world that there were indeed many well organized terrorists wanting to harm US citizens and how venerable rescue efforts were to disruption of communications.
  • US Government drafts defense plan
  • Chinese attack plans are revealed by the CIA
  • Still M$ languishes and languishes working on DRM and other lock out crap.
  • M$ incompetence contributes to the biggest US blackout ever by disrupting critical company communications and overloading network. The whole thing could have been prevented.
  • North Korea launches cracker schools.
  • The US Air force Mission is updated to include net dominance
  • US Government turns to superior Free Software
  • Home and business users lag, causing havoc in hospitals, threatening medical and accounting records and creating a hotbed of exploitable computers for spam and spam and spam and denial of service attacks used against EVERYONE.
• 2004 apologies, security is too hard! Duhhhhh, if M$ is not up to task no one is, right? Wrong.
• The FUD rolls on to this day check out Her new Blog! as she spews forth Pressing Questions.
  • Get the facts about how expensive and non free software is helping India and other developing coun

Read The Myth of RF Interference by David Reed (yes, that David Reed).

Basically, we use spread-spectrum software defined radio (ala GNUradio) to connect with multiple nodes in a truly P2P wireless mesh-network.

Taxes do good things--they generally build roads to somewhere

I think you meant ESPECIALLY in areas that are highly "liberal".

Wingnut hogwash.

Evan Coyne Maloney details a case where a student on a liberal campus was theatened with expulsion for "hate speech" because they didn't like the "Ellen" series finale.

Your link is long on snipets but very short on details and context. And thus, worthless.

a short video that demonstrates the successful operation of the project.

Freweesshhhoooot?

I don't know otherwise, and Don Martin - the king of onomatopoeia is dead unfortunately:

http://dir.salon.com/story/people/obit/2000/01/15/ martin/index.html

As we have found out, the miscalculation was enormous.

How do you figure? Is Karl Rove or Orrin Hatch any poorer? So far they have calculated things to a nicety. I do not see any way for the American people to get out of this situation. Your representatives continue to rubberstamp absurd fiscal and political abuses while Salon tells us "Don't punish Hayden for Bush's sins". Punish? Is there any possibility at all that he won't get this appointment? Heck suppose the lobbyists decide that their wallets are next and so Hayden gets rejected. Bush just gives the name of another insider that we've never heard of and we do it all over again. They don't care if nobody gets picked: the nearly anonymous interim director is apparently doing a fine job. Bush has nearly won the War of Terror.

I'm afraid Courtney Love beat you to it:

http://archive.salon.com/tech/feature/2000/06/14/l ove/

Exactly! And probably the most paranoid folks in the *world* are people like Cheney, Perle, etc. Thus, the weird thing is, if theory #1 (crazy arabs) doesn't hold water, then theory #2 (controlled demolition) also implies that Cheney or someone, in their extremist paranoia, manifested the very nightmare as reality, the very nightmare that keeps them awake at night, to "spur" americans to action. (What I haven't seen much in these threads is Cheney's involvement in the PNAC, project for a new american century.) Yep, you are durn right about paranoia. It's a wicked one. Like some bizarre Philip K. Dick novel, these extremists have sucked us in to their own nightmarish world.

One more thing: do not confuse any theory that contradicts the govt approved theory as the work of a bunch of whackos. Do the research, read the links above, figure it out.

What planet do you live on? There's lot's excitement for people who discover GNU/Linux. Expectations are typically low, thanks to massive FUD campaigns. A by product of that FUD is an air of the dangerous and new that's irresistible to many. Those that bother to try and stick with it long enough to overcome the bad habits of commercial software are amply rewarded. In the end, they find the joy of free software, which continues to grow. Browsing software repositories is like walking through a candy store where everything is free and the candy only gets better as time goes on. New programs make it feel like Christmas all year long. What does the five year and counting M$ train wreck release cycle have to match that? Zip, zero, zilch, hype, FUD and other hot air.

Most of the people I know have barely heard of free software and are heavily FUDed about it. They have this strange notion that it's hard to use and won't work with their hardware. Some even confuse it with copyright violation and think it's somehow tainted and immoral. Big players, like IBM, Lowes, Chrysler, etc, have helped to alleviate the "rebel" image but the FUD still stick because the big dumb vendors like Dell still don't offer a GNU/Linux desktop machines for end users.

Anyone who's used a GNU/Linux system for any length of time knows the FUD for the BS but the discovery never ends. Media players are a prime example. I've been using free software since Red Hat 5.x in 1998 and I've watched a steady and constant improvement. Back then, things were so nasty I did not even bother with sound. Then came vorbis, sox, autoconfiguration, ALSA, xine and suddenly audio is easy. Today, you can get live CDs that run Amarok, which has to be one of the finest media players available. Amarok excels as a media player as Konqueror and Firefox excel as browsers. Everywhere you look at a GNU/Linux system you see more excellence. The product is greater than the sum of the parts and M$ can't keep up to save their life. Hell, they are finally getting a browser with tabs and a multiple desktop GUI, but it's so bloated and top heavy with, virus checking and DRM it won't even work.

The final, unmatchable and exciting discovery is how free software really works. Far from being evil, free software is morally superior. No free software project has ever sued a public school for copying a text editor and none ever will misuse the government and laws in such a hideous way. What Microsoft dissmisses as "Communism" is actually co-operative capitalism and free market innovation at it's finest. Getting something for nothing and finding out that's the way it should have been all along feels great. The lies and harm M$ heaps on free software all backfire and the user is left with an unshakable commitment to their own software freedom.

http://blogs.salon.com/0002007/2006/05/15.html

http://www.crab.rutgers.edu/~goertzel/fourthturnin g.htm

http://www.futureswatch.org/Timeline.htm

They may take time to bear fruit but attempts to politicize the CIA are well underway.

It's hard to believe anyone would use mercury in a thermometer, but people were sticking those things in their mouths for years. I remember using one when I was a kid and breaking it to see what it would look like in my hand. (yes, it's a miracle I survived my childhood).

For that matter, though there's lead in CRT's and mercury and cadmium in boards and switches. It wouldn't be a real surprise for someone to put something ELSE toxic in this stuff.

"If 386BSD had been available when I started on Linux, Linux would probably never have happened."

No it's not and it's only part of the problem. The current system does not pay artists. Exclusive franchises never pay anyone but themselves and they are entirely clueless. People have been making, sharing and profiting from music long before mass production and insane copyright laws. They will continue to do so. These guys figured out how to make plenty of money and let people share their music a long time ago. You make money doing things for people. The music industry does very little of that but keeps the rewards for itself. Copyright is only one of their tools. Creative Commons is trying to pull something useful from copyright laws. You can be sure they are on the RIAA hit list.

Barbie was modeled on a German cartoon character, an ambitious hooker named Lilli.

middle of this article.

Dan Bricklin mentions it.

I can't find the interview though.

My favorite Bill G. quote is his support of software piracy in China and the third world:

"Although about 3 million computers get sold every year in China, but people don't pay for the software," he said. "Someday they will, though. As long as they are going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade."

Just like the neighborhood pusher. "Come on kids, the first hit is free..."

This has been possible for years. Here is a salon article from 1998 about doing the same thing with a Palm.

http://archive.salon.com/21st/log/1998/12/07log.ht ml

-W

the freedom to change, or port to another platform, the software that you purchased or downloaded. This is the original philosophy of the Free Software Foundation, and the GNU project, who were collectively the inspiration for the "open source" movement.

No. This is how it was in the Unix world before the Web. This was/is the spirit behind Unix and the BSD license. This at a time when "sharing code" meant senting tapes through the mail.

Get your facts straight, and learn a little bit about the history to which the Linux crowd and GNU are tributaires. Free software existed before the FSF. Read the following article:
"BSD Unix: Power to the people, from the code"
http://dir.salon.com/story/tech/fsp/2000/05/16/cha pter_2_part_one/index.xml?pn=1

Bill Clinton wasn't impeached.

Also, he was a pretty horrible president himself. Forget lying about having sex with an intern. He bombed the only asprin factory in Sudan during the trial to divert the public's attention. And then he lied about that.

You were not looking. If you did you would have found them. It's not just one study. People have very carefully studied the voting habits of every niche of people they can define. Political parties do this constantly so there are hundreds of studies done to see how a group of people vote.

For example when I put in the phrase "voting habits of people with passports" the second link was this URL http://dir.salon.com/story/tech/feature/2004/09/21 /overseas_voting/index.html (watch out for slashdot mangling).

That took me all of 30 seconds. You are telling me you were not able to find that artice at all? What kind of searches were you doing?

"As for the IT set, anecdotal experience indicates that there are more libertarians than the general populace, but not necessarily more Socialists/Communists/Democrats, which would be the more liberal on the fiduciary front."

Well as soon as use the word communist to describe people who disagree with you the argument is pretty much over. You need to hang out at free republic with like minded people. You know the ones who go around saying "hitlery" and "demoncrat".

"ESR certainly seems to like guns."

Yes he is a liberterian. So?

It's considered something of an insiders' event. It is a gig for the press... so they don't like making it into a news item in itself.

Also, it's not really news. People are saying, "omg! this guy made fun of the preznit, who was standing right in front of him!" But this happens every year. It's just that this time it was funnier than most. There are rumors that Bush didn't like it. There were similar rumors about President Clinton. About both of these rumors I have to say: who the hell cares?? Aren't there more important issues you could be worried about?

I know it's meant as a joke, but since it's not true, it's even less funny? What do Vint Cerf and Robert Kahn say..? and A Salon.com Gore Internet Invented Article or More Gore Internet Invented, Invention Research ...don't you think?

For those who never read the speech Courtney Love gave at the Digital Hollywood Online Entertainment Conference a few years ago it's worth a read. Most noteworthy was the position she held that the record labels are the real pirates.

Sony, (once again) continues to make her position tenable.

Courtney Love does the math:
http://archive.salon.com/tech/feature/2000/06/14/l ove/

Just because the war fails doesn't mean that tons of people who've never hurt anyone won't have their lives destroyed by it.

I believe that the these wars are accomplishing exactly what the people who've instigated them wanted them to. As has been pointed out elswhere in responses to this story, these "wars" exist so that the powerful can prosecute and imprison people they don't like.

If you're a liberal pot smoker, you go to jail.

If you're a right-wing political pundit popping OxyContin, then boo-hoo, you have a drug addiction, and, well, you keep doing whatever you were doing before.

If you're a coke-snorting son of a family of senators, you do some community service, go AWOL, get arrested for drunk driving, and eventually get your governor-brother to rig election results so that you can become president, and stab your own CIA operatives in the back.

No, these wars and laws are a complete success.

--- SER

It's a little old (circa 1999), but Salon's article "The name game" -- a look inside the "identity firms" that come up with so many of the weird names that are floating around these days -- is worth bringing up because it's just so freaking funny.

It seems that when Altman and Manning presented the name Jamcracker to a client recently, the reception was not everything they had hoped for. "I put the name up in front of their creative people," Manning says. "There were a couple of women sitting in. One of them got up and said, 'Oh, that's disgusting.' Another said, 'This is really sick.' I said, 'Excuse me, what are you talking about?' They said, 'We can't explain it, but that name is just creeping us out. We don't know what it is, but could you take it off the wall, please?'" Manning remains mystified by the incident. "There's apparently some strange, uncomfortable meaning attached to it in the minds of some women," he says. "God knows what that could be."

Read the whole thing, it's worth it.

Here in suburban Georgia, you don't expect too many people to think outside the box--or, for that matter, outside of what the major radio stations feed them. However, college radio stations, which play indie music, are soaring in popularity--and, as you pointed out, tech-savvy young people are actively seeking new music on the Internet. Friends of mine and people I knew in high school, some of whom I never would have thought could open their minds enough to actively find new and different music, are. In suburban friggin' Georgia.

It seems as though the independent music movement is starting in the north--parts of Canada, Seattle, New York, etc--and making its way here to the south. And with major artists like these speaking out against RIAA tactics (not to mention the fact that their rottenness is gaining more and more publicity as they sue dead people and innocents who don't own computers), people are bound to take notice.

Incidentally, in 2000, Courtney Love wrote a (surprisingly clear and comprehensive) speech which speaks out against the recording industry in general--and accuses industry big-wigs of stealing music, not file sharers. That article is a really good read, as it says specifically how the RIAA shafts its artists even before they're popular enough to have their music "stolen".

I might not like Avril, or Sarah, or BNL, but they all have a huge fanbase. And the more people in the know, the better, regardless of where the information comes from.

Impossible.

Microsoft has testified in court that IE cannot be separated from the "Core OS", whatever that means.

Therefore, what you say cannot be true :)

QED